Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Want Your Vote

On the road with a man so angry he scares Democrats, too.

- Joel Stein, photos by Jonno Rattman

Bernie Sanders cannot understand why anyone is interested in Bernie Sanders. Sure, he has learned to toss a paragraph of biography into his presidential campaign speeches, but he gives that section less passion than any other. He mumbles something about growing up with an immigrant father in a tenement with three and a half rooms. When asked privately what this “half room” is, Sanders looks as if he’s never considered it. “Probably the foyer,” he says. “It had a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and foyer. They threw in a bathroom as well, but I didn’t count it. You know, my memory of my bathroom is that one time a fish actually came up through a toilet.” He pauses. “We did not cook it.”

And the selfies - Sanders does not enjoy the selfies. “If I had my options I’d prefer to shake hands,” he says. Wading through a selfie barrage at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Plymouth, N.H., he allows the local radio DJ to put a knit cap with reindeer antlers on him. “I was a little afraid it would tussle your hair,” the DJ jokes. Sanders’s hair is famously disheveled. But Sanders has no interest in fashion banter. “This is a real New England hat,” says Sanders. “We worry less about looks and more about keeping warm.” Later, visiting his campaign office in Salem, N.H., he agrees to sign a few “Bernie” T-shirts for volunteers. “This is one of the skills as president I will clearly need: Writing your name on T-shirts,” he says. “Who would believe that a grown-up person is debasing T-shirts all over America?”